


Death on an Alien Plane

by Blueinkedfrost



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: Adventure, Cosy Murder Mystery, Friendship, Gen, Murder Mystery, Suspiciously Humanoid Aliens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24678064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueinkedfrost/pseuds/Blueinkedfrost
Summary: Valygar Corthala, notable hater of wizards, is trapped on an alien plane with a malevolent wizard and an insane wizard. Even worse, he can't decide which of the two is more malevolent or more insane. But when the three reluctant companions find themselves in the midst of a murder mystery, they'll have to use all their skills together if they ever want to make it back home.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10
Collections: Baldur's Gate Gift Exchange 2020





	Death on an Alien Plane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GriegPlants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GriegPlants/gifts).



> Thank you for your amazing prompt, GriegPlants! Hope that you enjoy this story.

_You are trapped on an alien plane with two wizards. One is malevolent. One is utterly insane._

_Xzar is a necromancer - just like my parents! It is an inherently corrupt and evil life. Edwin holds the deluded belief he will conquer the world one day. Also, Edwin is a selfish bastard who hogged all the blankets in our tent and complained about deserving more. Then Xzar had a meaningful and highly emotional conversation with half a coconut. It was infested with maggots._

_They're both malevolent. They're both insane._

Valygar Corthala sighed. It was most likely his fate to die here on this alien plane, trapped in consequence of his parents' evil actions. He and the two wizards were separated from the others. That bastard Lavok's planar engine had seemed to shoot liquid lightning at them - in the midst of the battle with the golems, their party was shattered - then the glowing blue portal opened beneath Valygar's feet. He and the wizards were thrown to a different world. _Filthy magic. It only exists to do harm._

This was not Faerun. Two suns were setting at different parts of the horizon, and a brilliant white belt stretched across the sky.

"'Tis a Ring World," Xzar the mad wizard jumped in. "Remember ye the ringed planet within our own dimension, visible through gnome-made telescope the width of twoscore gnomes? No? Valygar, you have no astronomical education; I will pretend not to talk to you, except with the aid of a sock puppet. This is one such world, where cosmic ice particles circle the vast globe and mark this pale brilliant bridge in the sky."

"Astronomy is inherently worthless knowledge fit only for moonblind dreamers and wastrels," Edwin, the equally insane, growled. "What aid would astronomy give to a future ruler of Faerun? None whatsoever. I do not concern myself with useless subjects, and this blockheaded ranger is only tolerable because he also does not."

"This blockheaded ranger notices a road winding before us," Valygar said. They stood amidst a long stretch of shifting grey sand marked by scraggling, alien plants. Of all the places Valgyar had travelled to - mostly, trudged through thirsty and exhausted and filthy, as a military scout - this reminded him of the Tethyr desert the most. That was likely deceptive indeed. "I suggest we take it and find shelter."

"Death is in the air," Xzar commented. He'd made many such comments ever since Valygar had known him. It was just about true - after all, they travelled with a Bhaalspawn. Marvella. Valygar missed her calm, sensible ways more than he could say. She was a slow-spoken ranger like himself, of middle height and broad as a barrel, with a steady amber gaze. Marvella's only weakness was her collection of unhinged wizards, perhaps because her foster father had been one. She'd walked into Athkatla with two she'd pulled out of Irenicus' dungeon by the skin of her teeth and only accumulated more. If Valygar couldn't be trapped on an alien plane with Marvella herself, he would have preferred to be trapped with Dynaheir the sensible Rashemi or Xan the realistic Greycloak, or maybe even Quayle the deranged circus gnome or his naive niece ...

But that was not to be.

"Death is about us, death within the black dust that surrounds us," Xzar continued. Valygar noticed that the mad wizard was being followed by a pair of dead mice. They'd been mummified by the harsh climate, their bodies smooth and dry. _Was 'mice' the right word for them?_ Valygar speculated; they resembled Faerunian field-mice but the bodies were too elongated and the ears pointed like foxes. An otherworldly species. He scowled at Xzar's necromancy. Likely the people who built this road would also be different to Faerunian humanoids.

"Keep your nauseating habits to yourself where they won't shock the primitive natives, Zhent," Edwin humphed. But already, company came toward them. The sort of company with armour and polearms, bladed with a gleaming alloy.

Valygar raised his hands peaceably. No sense to provoking a fight when they were visitors. If he were a delusional optimist, he might hope the Red Wizard could pretend to have just enough sense to do likewise. Not even the most delusional optimist could have hopes about Xzar.

They looked like men, but not - quite - human or elven. Very tall, the shortest among them at least half a head taller than Valygar; slender; stiffly moving, like a cross between people and golems. Their language was unknown to the Faerunians and vice versa, so they fell back on the universal tongue of force. The travellers, prodded along with polearms, were hauled to the main square of what appeared to be a moderate town. Behind them, the two mummified mice trailing at the hem of Xzar's green robes were multiplied to four, seven, eleven at Valygar's last count.

"This place is not entirely primitive," Edwin observed. "(Less so than my companions, at any rate.) Far from the high standards of civilised Thay, but perhaps adequate. I hear the sounds of machinery and note that the dwellings are made from refined artificial materials. (Perhaps they have even invented perfume, beard curlers and concubines.)"

The travellers were sent and poked into a vast building replete with machinery. The Red and Green wizards exchanged a glance, and suddenly Xzar wrenched a red lace-trimmed handkerchief out of Edwin's pockets. He helped himself to Valygar's cloak as well, ripping his pocket from its seams and leaving Valygar to mutter under his breath as he scooped up his medicaments and crossbow bolts.

Then under Xzar's magical manipulation the scraps of fabric became curtains and costumes ... and the mummified mice a puppet show.

The mad wizard gave the guards the answers they were looking for: a band of travellers, cruelly separated from each other, seeking the evil wizard Lavok (his face utterly hidden by black fabric), trapped in a different plane by accident. The mouse representing Marvella had her stance and air almost exactly, yet to represent her with such magic was an utter obscenity. Valygar would have liked to believe Marvella collected these insane wizards out of pity, but he knew that she held a liking for them despite everything. He shook his head.

"I tire of this pathetic parody of puppetry," Edwin announced. "(Besides, the one representing me is wearing insufficient red and is not placed with suitable importance above his other minions.) It is time for some real magic." He opened his spellbook and murmured to himself.

It was clear enough that the people here did not use arcane magic; they would have known to bind the wizards' wrists in iron and gag them, Valygar thought. He heard the splash of water in the distance, like giant water wheels, and the sleek sounds of oiled metal grinding against more metal. After flicking through his pages, Edwin raised his hands, met Valygar's eyes, and cast his spell.

Valygar reeled back. Fire in his brain! The Red Wizard had finally betrayed them - exactly as he'd expected all along from such a selfish and insane arcane spellcaster. Bitter experience had long ago taught Valygar Corthala about the corruption and pain magic brought to all who played with it. He turned on Edwin with the intent to fight him back - but stopped short. Whatever spell had been cast, it had not injured ...

"Even you, fool, must admit that our inability to speak the language of these local simians has resulted in immense buffoonery and will continue to do so. We cannot wait the extra four or so days it would take a mental giant such as myself to completely master their tongue; I have cast a spell upon all of us to learn any language we should happen to be exposed to on our travels," Edwin said. "The spell trigger is contact between the mutual organs of speech. Go ahead, ranger (really, he makes such a fuss over even the simplest of cantrips).

"I said, go and kiss one of our guards, Valygar. You will learn their language by lip contact. Did I not make myself clear?" Edwin demanded.

Valygar bowed to the inevitable and made peaceable signals with the friendliest looking of the guards. The guard allowed him a brief touch. It felt like an electric shock passed between their mouths. All of a sudden, the guards' talk made sense to him.

"They seem to be three harmless fools - the puppets are quite a show! How can that madman do it with no wires?"

"Think of poor Psandrisa where he lies - it is too much of a coincidence! They are guilty - "

"They have not raised hands to us; friendly enough - and in Brissat's case, _extremely_ friendly - "

"Now, kiss me, Valygar," Edwin said. "Do me first. Lastly, you will kiss Xzar. (I refuse to be exposed to any foul necromantic pathogens carried in that madman's saliva.)"

Valygar coldly pecked Edwin on the lips in turn, and mustered enough courage to do the same for Xzar, who leapt three feet high in the air with a squeal of "Stop touching me!" in the foreign tongue.

"We apologise for intruding. We are from another plane, pursuing a wicked spellcaster, and only wish to return to our homeland. We have no knowledge of this Psandrisa," Valygar said. He knew his tongue was wrapping itself around syllables and phonemes he'd never pronounced in his life, yet it all came out readily enough.

The guard in the most expensive looking outfit answered back. "We know that you were called by the Machine. Tell us, were you pretending to be silent or did the red man's actions grant you the power of speech?"

"The latter," Valygar said. "The red one and the green one have abilities that may be unknown to you, but I am sure that you also have abilities - much better ones, I truly believe." If this was a world without magic, it was a good world as far as Valygar was concerned. In different circumstances, he might have asked to stay in a world with no magic, if not for his duty to end Lavok and aid Marvella.

He earned a "(Speak for yourself, peon)" from Edwin, but continued. "It is not our intent to make war on you. Is this Machine capable of returning us to our homes?"

"It is not," the leading guard answered. "Barely two hours ago, one of our own, Psandritsa, was foully murdered at his post as a technician. The murderer pushed him into the turbine. For the sacred rituals of our faith, we cannot remove the body or return the Machine into operation until the killer - or killers - is found."

"We were summoned not long before that time," Valygar said honestly, "but we were summoned some distance away from here. Your guards have probably already told you that we were on foot. Even if we wished to kill one who could help us return home, we had no way of being in two places at once." He hoped that Edwin and Xzar had just enough self control to avoid mentioning that both of them were capable of spells that did things very close to that. "In my homeland, I was a soldier for fifteen years. For part of that time, I was a military provost. I investigated desertions, theft, and murder within the ranks."

Xzar started and capered behind them. "Provost! A dog's dog! I knew this not. _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes_ \- he who watches over those who watch. The investigators, the interrogators." A black-clad dead mouse menaced a smaller, naked mouse. "Do you worship Cyric? No? Off with his head! Off with his family's head! Off with - help me, Mummy!"

"You know, I was a lot more comfortable with the green one when he was speaking all foreign," one of the guards said. His partner nodded.

"Yes, that's true. Valygar, why were you such a fool as to kiss him? This is all your fault and you've probably caught something horrible," Edwin said.

"I'll promise to aid your investigation as much as I can, as long as I can keep an eye on these two all the while," Valygar told the captain.

"I could sell you some muzzles and leashes," she said. She reached out her hand, palm facing the ground. Valygar assumed it was her plane's equivalent of a handshake; he was astonished that his own reflexes mirrored her movement. It seemed that Edwin's spell was effective on non-verbal language as well. He'd die rather than tell any mage he was begrudgingly impressed. "I'm Captain Revel, and the mayor of this town to boot. You've likely noticed that we're a small and remote place with little resources," she said. She looked to be wearing expensive clothing and jewellery compared to the other guards, but Valygar wouldn't make waves with criticism. "For whatever it is worth, we'll accept your aid. In spite of this tragedy, I believe that the mighty Machine we have created will lead us to trade and prosperity that we can all be proud of. When our machinery is revived, wealth from other dimensions will flow to us like water and the meanest peasant here will be above the burgomasters of any other city."

Several guards and bystanders nodded at this planned campaign speech. Valygar was less than impressed with this coming after a body not two hours cold.

"This is our chief scientist, Alcmene duPane," Revel said. Valygar touched hands with a tall, intimidating figure, her hair wrapped with a set of long cloth bands. "She is the Machine's chief architect, designer, and manager. We would in no way enjoy our position without her."

"Your generous financial support is never underestimated, Mayor Revel," Alcmene replied. Yet there was an undercurrent of ice between the two women - rival power blocs in the town, it seemed. Likely only one of them would dominate over the Machine's control in the end.

"Where were you when your technician was killed?" Valygar asked bluntly.

"In my office, as I previously explained to Revel's guards. Before you ask, there is none who can confirm, but it is in my schedule and anyone would have observed had I left."

"And here is Psandrisa's direct supervisor, Melliso Chame," Revel said. This was a burly man in grease-stained clothing, a practical engineer. "He had ordered Psandrisa to report on recent fuel use patterns immediately prior to the death."

"Death demands truth. I am sad to say that Psandrisa was my worst employee," Melisso said. "He was technically gifted, but rarely carried out work as instructed. He needed close supervision. He ought to have worked from our records room, yet he came here. Insubordinate as always."

 _Two feuding power brokers in town, a supervisor who loathed the dead man_ , Valygar thought. _At least in a world with no magic I do not have to fret about supernatural causes._ He looked down at his feet; the ground below them was scattered with grains and grasses.

"And here is Fevrefear, his personal partner," Revel said. "She works as a lifter in our fuel division. She discovered the body when she brought him his midday grain supply."

"L-last time he threw the seeds I brought him at the wall and said they were bad!" The woman gasped and coughed her testimony. "He was always fussy and silly. I made a special grass bannock for him this time! Fertilised it myself every day, I did! But then I saw him ... I saw him ... "

All looked down at the halted metal turbine. The broken body was still there. Valygar saw more of the interior of these people than he'd ever wanted to know - lilac blood, and jagged marble-like parts, hard enough for the dead body to stop a metal turbine, though not before the metal turbine had pierced him through first -

Already, before anyone could stop him, Xzar leapt down to the bottom of the machine pit and knelt over the body. He even dipped a finger in the lilac blood and tasted it. He hummed to himself, eyes bright, energetically examining the corpse from every angle. Valygar shouted to him, but he wouldn't respond.

"Examining an alien corpse? A necromancer can no more be pried away from that than a bear from defecation in the woods, or a concubine from gold. (Faugh, the wench from the Coronet cost me my last copper when she ought to have paid me for the privilege.)"

"Xzar is ... eccentric, Captain Revel, but he is an expert in death," Valygar said, trying to be diplomatic. Someone had to be. "His insight into the cause of death will help us find the killer."

"We noticed the cause of death," Alcmene said.

"The concubine probably did it; it's always the concubine," Edwin said. "Can we accuse her and return to our home plane?" Fevrefear's sobs grew louder.

"I apologise for Edwin. Most of his travelling companions have to, at some point or another," Valygar said. "Do you recognise these grains on the ground?" he asked Fevrefear.

"Of course I do! That was what I brought him! I dropped my basket the moment I saw him," The woman shuddered all over again.

 _Or perhaps ... she had reason to be angry with her lover, not that his rude treatment of her meals warranted murder; she discovered the body; easy enough for her to lose her basket while throwing him over._ Edwin was not wholly wrong that a person's lover was the most likely suspect in a death.

"And the safety rails?" Valygar asked.

"Broken, as you can see," Alcmene said. "I think we have neglected the possibility of accident. We used cheap materials because we did not have the budget for better - and, as somebody said at the time, 'people have eyes'." The Chief Scientist mimicked someone else's voice - from the glare Revel shot her, that somebody was Captain Revel.

"Yet even our _cheap_ materials could not have been shattered by mere accident." Revel picked up a broken piece of the safety railings. "I am considered strong; you see it is difficult for me to break. This was a deliberate murder."

"You argue that it was by a strong person, then," Valygar said.

Fevrefear looked as tall and strong as Revel, as far as Valygar could tell - likely strong enough to force Psandrisa through the rail. Melliso the supervisor also had great strength. The Chief Scientist was the only suspect who didn't seem strongly made; though tall and hatchet-faced, she was rather thin and carried herself like someone who never worked with her hands. Valygar reminded himself that this was an alien plane and not all the Faerunian techniques of asking questions and piecing together the chain of circumstances would aid him here.

"Xzar, what did the dead man have on him?" Valygar called down to the necromancer.

"Inky fingertips - an ashy blend of same, fairly good bouquet - but no written work," Xzar answered.

"My men found this." Revel gave Valygar a crumpled piece of plant-made parchment, smoother and thinner than most Faerunian paper. The squiggles on it resolved themselves into words before his eyes: a list of names and times. "A duty roster - we print many of these; most employees carry at least one." The dead man had been registered for a punishing schedule of late.

"No fuel report," Valygar said.

"No. Psandrisa was gifted at technical analysis, but rarely at doing the specific work requested," Melisso said.

"Might we see instances of his past work?" Valygar asked.

Edwin pored through reams of paper, muttering to himself all the while. "Psandrisa had an eye for detail, a tendency to become obsessed, and a facility for tangents. I see his suggestions for improving the Machine saved the town many units of currency in the early days. Recently, he was exceedingly obsessive about his dining habits and food impurities."

"Keep reading, Edwin," Valygar said. "Mellisto, could you grant me a tour of the area near the body?"

"I was within my own office below when I heard the crash," the supervisor explained. "The Machine stopped, shortly after anomalous readings - those readings likely _you_. I and others rushed out to check for the cause. When Fevrefew screamed, that drew us to the turbine."

"Who was second on the scene?"

"It was between me and the Captain," Mellisto said. "I ran down from the gantry. Revel's chamber - as Mayor - is at the top of the structure. Alcmene's office is close to the turbine, but, as you can see, out of direct view from it."

"I returned to my office not long before the incident, as my schedule shows," Alcmene said. "I inspected the reservoir and presented some required improvements to one of the secondary foremen, then made my way back. I generally wear earmuffs to aid in deep concentration, so I was unaware of the incident until there came a banging on my door. One of Revel's minions."

"You're welcome," Revel said. She called down to Xzar. "A question, if you don't mind: what kind of force likely pushed the dead man in?"

"After he was strangled to death? Anyone could have done it!" Xzar said. All looked aghast. With all the blood and mess down there, the cause of death had seemed so obvious. "Fractures on the hyoid bone, swollen tongue - your people have similar enough anatomy to ours for that to be obvious to the trained necromancer. He was strangled with a piece of thin cloth then thrown down here. I suppose with enough force to shatter the safety railings to boot."

"They wished it to be seen as an accident, but breaking the safety railings was still beyond normal strength, so that plan failed," Valygar said.

"For the murder weapon: It will have no blood on it and be a strip of cloth approximately two-and-a-quarter inches wide," Xzar said.

"To move a strangled body? Within a crowded factory?" Revel said sharply. "This seems nearly impossible. The closest I have seen to it was your green man's movement of the mice without strings. Can you or the red man do the same thing?"

The captain did not need to make her look of dawning suspicion obvious. It was obvious to all around them.

"The red man can, I cannot," Valygar said. The truth was he had cast cantrips as a child, but had long forsworn magic - he did not and would not use foul arts against people, like the necromancer Lavok and his own parents had done. "They both need line of sight to do it. And they were both with me. We must look elsewhere."

Edwin approached them with the papers under his arm, smirking at his own genius. Valygar nodded to him. "Tell us about Psandrisa's latest obsessions," he said.

"In affairs like this, so often it is not what is written, but what is _left out of the writing_ that gives the greatest yield to the man of genius," Edwin said. "(I mean myself by that. I hope the simians understand I mean myself by that. Should I rephrase, Edwin? No, 'tis best to continue.) Traditional Thayvian wizards habitually leave at least one key phrase out of the spell they write down, so as to protect their knowledge from amateurs, slaves, and foreigners. I have searched through the missing pieces of Psandrisa's obsession, and besides his intense and strange dietary musings have found statistics on ... the surplus of dust escaping the Machine."

Valygar swiftly glanced around, looking for what he had expected to see. Most of the people before him were bemused by Edwin's air of triumph - but there was at least one who understood. He saw an odd expression on the face of one he hadn't expected, but did not have time to ponder it.

"What did you say before, Xzar?" Valygar asked. The necromancer clambered out of the turbine's pit, his long limbs moving like a spider. "Death is in the air, death in the black dust that surrounds us. You predicted this all along."

"Don't worry! I predict a lot of things that don't come true, or are just absolutely crazy." Xzar giggled. "Get Montaron to tell you about the rabbits sometime!"

"Death was in the air and in the black dust - the black dust from the Machine," Valygar declared. He felt sickened inside. He'd hoped that this land without magic would be more pure and pleasant and right than his own, but their technology had done the same thing as the magic he despised. "It's how all the mice were killed. Psandrisa wanted to prove that the land and the grain was poisoned. He was a strange and obsessive man, who would always tell others the truth of what he found. That is why he was killed - strangled with a thin cloth, not unlike one of the bands commonly wound about hair by some of the people here. Who else would he go to but the Chief Scientist?"

"Yes," Revel agreed. "And she must be magic like you - how else could she have flung him over! Alcmene is the traitor, men, get her - "

Valygar's family blade was in his hand. "No. She is ... not even Alcmene," he said.

Then the necromancer Lavok showed his true face. "Well deduced, my descendant," he said. Alcmene's form melted away to show a cadaver with burning, flaming eyes. The people about them stared in shock and horror at the monster in their midst.

A barrage of spells hit the lich from both sides. Edwin and Xzar brandished their spell-component pouches. Valygar's sword struck sparks across the lich's bony limbs, slowing and tangling his spell-movements.

Somehow, for all his distrust of mages and magery, Valygar had never doubted that his companions would help him in the battle. Xzar's necromancy drilled black holes into Lavok's cloak while Edwin's barrage of fire danced on the lich's bones. They kept up their bombardment and refused to back away.

The lich's power melted metal throughout the factory, sent guards spinning away and down hopelessly, pinned by bolts and traps to the walls. Revel was still standing and landed a blow to the lich's back, but her sword only met with magical force.

"You of this plane, I bid you listen and listen well," the lich said. "Psandrisa was right. This engine damages your land. I created it for you with false promises so that I could achieve my own goal."

"When you are gone we will use it for better!" Revel shouted. "Finish him and listen not to this monster's words!"

Lavok flung her from him with a gesture. She landed with a crack on the opposite wall, dazed but still crawling forward. "Use this device again and it will harm you. There is no way around that. Hear this and pass it on."

"Lying creature!" Revel wailed.

Valygar struck and struck again to the best of his abilities. Cut down Lavok once and for all and free his family of their curse! Let him hear no more of this monstrous corpse's lying words!

Yet the lich's flecks of blue fire in place of eyes drew him in despite himself. "There was another who wanted Psandrisa dead," said Lavok. "Another he would have gone to with the news. Psandrisa's suspicions were of me, the scientist - and he was right. He told another, threatening to tell the whole town and close down the Machine for good. They met in my office. That other killed him with the intent to frame Alcmene ... and then it was my magic that threw him too hard into the machine, for I wished to escape detection ... "

_The feud between Alcmene and Mayor Revel. The Mayor's desire for the profit from this portal. Was it she who all along ... No! It cannot be!_

And yet Revel's shouts to silence the lich said otherwise.

"You are a murderer of countless innocents," Valygar said. He crushed such thoughts - he did not want to believe that Lavok was anything less than pure evil.

"I cannot convince you," the lich answered. "Know only that I have my own goals. Know that the machine already granted me enough energy to depart this plane. Know that I leave and leave all alive."

He told the truth. The lich had utterly destroyed the Machine but left the humans standing - even Revel, now met with suspicious horror by her own men. Perhaps, perhaps - 

A portal exploded from the lich's body. Lavok Corthala vanished in a glimmering blue light. Valygar barely hesitated to rush forth to enter the portal, and by his side were Edwin and Xzar.

"Off to aid our friend, Edwin! Adventure awaits! Cheers for the magic of necromancy and friendship!" Xzar bubbled.

"If I must. (I can see this idiotic ranger requires constant babysitting)," Edwin complained.

Valygar only sighed expressively. He was about to be trapped on an alien plane with two malevolent and insane wizards again. Even worse, he was getting used to it.

**Author's Note:**

> Learning language by lip contact - thank you, Starfire from DC Comics.


End file.
